


Fifteen Days

by orphan_account



Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings, Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushuu | EarthBound, Mother 3
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asthma, Hanahaki Disease, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Y i k e s, a lot of A N G S T
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 19:47:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20458478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hanahaki. A disease where someone has deep romantic feelings, which are unrequited, causing flowers to grow in one's lungs.Ninten finds out he has this condition. And to make it worse, he has asthma.That's not a good combination.





	Fifteen Days

**Author's Note:**

> Me: *has a bunch of cool story ideas*  
Also Me: hey why dont we post this self indulgent fic right diddly there

Hanahaki. A disease where someone has deep romantic feelings, which are unrequited, causing flowers to grow in one's lungs.

It sounded fictitious. How could flowers grow in someone's lungs without seeds? It seemed like a fairy tale.

Unfortunately, it wasn't.

Ninten had the misfortune of being one of the couple thousand people with this disease. He had only just realized it a couple of days ago, but he knew he had had it for much, much longer than this.

He remembered the first time his symptoms started to show. It had been a bright sunny weekend and, Ninten had been sent on an errand to get some groceries. He was about half-way there until he ran into his crush.

Or, more specifically, his crush ran into him.

"Whoa!"

Ninten felt himself fall flat onto the ground after someone had barreled straight into him.

"Hey, watch where you're-!"

Ninten cut himself off upon seeing the person who ran into him.

"Ninten? Yikes, sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going!" The voice came from Ninten's close friend, Claus. His ginger hair was more messy than usual, and his clothes had become smudged with dirt.

"It's fine, Claus." Ninten huffed, brushing off the grime on his blue and black shirt. "I just wish you'd stop being so reckless..."

"Psh, like you're one to talk!" Claus laughed. "You ran straight into the corn maze without going to the ticket stand last fall!"

"That was one time, Claus!" Ninten yelled, embarrassed. "Besides, you've done a _lot_ more reckless stuff than me! Remember that one time..."

"Yeah no let's not talk about that." Claus quickly responded, face already going red at the memory. "Anyways, what are you doing here?"

"I'm getting some groceries for my mom. You?"

"I'm going to the arcade!" Claus said. "Hey, that's nearby! Can I-?"

"Nope, not dealing with you today." Ninten said curtly.

"Oh come on, that's not fair, Ninten! Just this once? Please?"

Claus was looking at Ninten with remarkably convincing puppy-dog eyes. His russet-brown eyes sparkled with the subtle threat of tears, and his lower lip was jutting out in a pout.

Okay, maybe it wasn't _that_ convincing. But Ninten would never admit it.

"Fine! Fine! I'll let you come with me!" Ninten relented. The resulting response made butterflies flutter in his stomach.

"Thank you! You're the best!"

Ninten felt a strange feeling in his gut. Did he feel giddy? Or was he exhilarated, maybe? He didn't have any time to dwell on this before he broke out into a coughing fit.

"...Hey, are you okay?" Claus said, concern filling his voice. "You're coughing a lot!"

Ninten wished he could respond with an 'I'm fine,' but he couldn't stop coughing. He cursed his asthma for being such a bother.

After a while, his rasping died down. He looked up to see Claus with a distressed look softening his face.

"Asthma again?" The ginger asked. Ninten only replied with a small nod. He wanted to respond with more, but he was afraid he was going to have another coughing fit.

He shifted to a sitting position, trying to catch his breath. Ninten idly noticed Claus sit right next to him, reddish-brown eyes still showing concern. He didn't say anything but was nevertheless there for support.

After a couple of minutes, Ninten got up and started walking again. Claus seemed to take a little while to process before running after him.

"Hey, where are you going?"

Ninten sighed. "To the grocery store, as I told you."

A look of shock crossed Claus' face before he looked away. A feeling of guilt washed over Ninten for being so harsh, but he quickly pushed it down. He didn't want to seem weak.

Later, he noticed the odd severity of the coughing fit. He hoped he wasn't getting worse.

A few weeks later, at dinner, Ninten's mind wandered to thinking about a certain ginger-haired boy.

Earlier that day, Claus had picked a fight with an older boy. It had led to him getting beat up, and Ninten had to take him to the nurse.

Ninten was getting frustrated by Claus' recklessness. It felt like every other day the ginger got into trouble, and Ninten or Lucas had to get him out. Or, at least, take him to the nurse.

However, Ninten couldn't stay mad for long. Claus did try to defend a younger boy. That was rather heroic of him.

_"And he is kinda cute-!"_

Ninten then started coughing. Uncontrollably.

He didn't think much of it at first, just slightly bothered by the coughing fit. But, as it didn't stop, he started to panic, standing up from his seat at the table.

He idly heard his mom asking him if he was okay, but he couldn't respond.

Then, he felt something start to come up his throat. Ninten quickly rushed to the bathroom, hacking up the thing into the toilet.

Luckily, his coughs stopped after the thing was out, and a feeling of relief washed over him. However, the relief faded upon seeing what he had coughed up. It was a small, blue, petal.

_"What?"_

Ninten felt the world freeze around him while his emotions swirled inside him. Shock, confusion, fear all spun like a whirlpool in his head. But his head was somehow empty of thoughts.

He barely heard his mom enter the room, asking if he was okay. He then listened to his mom's distress after seeing the petal.

Not too long after, his mom took him to the ER.

The doctor soon diagnosed Ninten with hanahaki disease. The doctor's words of the disease were echoing through Ninten's mind.

"Hanahaki... I never thought I'd see someone with the disease, let alone diagnose it."

"...What causes it? Well, it's, it's because of unrequited feelings. Strong, romantic feelings, specifically."

"There's treatment but, well... it causes all of the feelings towards that person to disappear. The other effects vary, from person to person..."

"Normally, at this stage, he would last 30 more days but... because of his asthma, he most likely would have about... 15 days?"

_"15... days?"_

Ninten's mind came to a screeching halt at those words. In fifteen days he would be **dead**. He would be **gone**. All because of his **stupid **feelings.

He felt like he was going to cry, or scream, or faint. But he did nothing. He lacked the energy to do so. All he did was stare blankly.

Eventually, Ninten could go home. As soon as he arrived, he walked up to his room and fell into his bed.

With exhaustion clouding his eyes, he stared at the ceiling. 

_"What am I going to do...? If anyone finds out about this, what will they think of me? ...What is Claus going to think of me?! He, he doesn't reciprocate my feelings, what if he hates me? I, I don't want to go to school tomorrow. Why...? Why did this happen to me?"_

Ninten wiped the tears that had started to stain his face, softly sniffling.

_"I... I shouldn't worry about this. Sleep is more important. Stop worrying, I need to sleep."_

And after a while, he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: 9/2/19; changes for pacing, some grammar


End file.
